What can we glean from the Barbie moment?
The film’s massive marketing push has not only sapped the world’s supply of pink, but offered chances for online self-expression, activism, debate…and a surprising amount of tears.
THE BIG TAKEAWAY: Now that the dust has settled on the big Barbenheimer opening weekend, and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie has broken $1 billion at the box office, we can step back and take stock of the ensuing digital conversation In our fragmented media culture, it is increasingly rare for a single film to become the focus of so many conversations. What happened and how can our field anticipate such major cultural meaning opportunities in the future?
SPOILER ALERT: This will all make more sense if you’ve seen the film!
Identity Is the name of the game. Not just a frothy two-hour commercial, Barbie tackles critiques about the toy’s stereotypes head-on—and provides fans with fodder to experiment with their own identities. Across the Internet, we saw how Barbie inspired re-mixing.
The Barbie Selfie Generator allows users to become an “instant icon” while, not coincidentally, promoting the film. People are using it to both emulate the doll and celebrate difference.
On TikTok, the “Ordinary Barbie” trend similarly emphasizes self-love over stereotypes, sometimes ironically featuring fans inside the very Barbie box that the titular character runs from. Sadly, while the phrase “ordinary barbie” comes from a plea by America Ferrara’s normal human character Gloria, Mattel does not seem to have any such doll in the pipeline.
OMG, THAT SPEECH! But if responses to Ferrara’s epic monologue about what it takes to be a woman are any barometer, we may see that ordinary Barbie manufactured yet…
In it, she details the many contradictions of contemporary femininity—full transcript here: “I always hoped that America would do this part, and I feel so lucky that she said yes,” said director Greta Gerwig. “Over the course of a long time prepping it, we really embroidered it with her own specificity and talked about her experiences and her own life, and three takes in, I was crying. Then I looked around, and everyone was crying — even the men were tearing up. I suddenly thought that this tightrope she’s explaining is something that is present for women in the way that she’s describing it, but it’s also present for everybody.”
According to HuffPost, some TikTok users are taking the film into their personal lives directly: “On TikTok, women are sharing how they plan to use ‘what did you think of Barbie?’ as a litmus test for dating.”
Of course, your mileage may vary. While Ferrera is Latina, some online critics still dismiss the speech and the film as a callow expression of “white feminism.”
A PLATFORM FOR ORGANIZING? Here at Digital Waves HQ, we’ve begun to collect examples of how advocates are surfing the massive crest of the film. For example, the National Domestic Workers Alliance mocked up their own line of activist Barbies.
Actress and environmental activist Darryl Hannah also decided to do a bit of culture-jamming by pretending to be a spokesperson for Mattel—announcing the company’s new line of Eco Warrior Barbies, ostensibly to be produced without the use of plastic.
KEN SHEDS A LIGHT ON TOXIC DIGITAL CULTURE: So what are viewers making of Ken’s antic efforts to bring the patriarchy to Barbie Land?
In The Guardian, Akin Olla reports weeping for Ken, who for him represents the miserable conditions of men under patriarchy. “The rise of the ‘manosphere’ — a network of misogynist communities with digital platforms like blogs, podcasts and forums — is a real threat to the liberation of men from their plight,” he writes. “Incels and male supremacists use men’s very real struggles to fuel hatred towards women while ignoring the systemic roots of their own pain.”
“His turbulent arc — from ‘just Ken’ to the flagbearer of patriarchy in Barbieland (a Kendrew Tate of sorts, if you will), to combating fellow Kencels, to Ken without Barbie is an absolute joy to watch,” observes Sajeer Shaikh in The Express Tribune, a newspaper based in Pakistan. But, “in blaming patriarchy for existing gender dynamics in the real world, the narrative fails to address how capitalism and white supremacy come into play.”
Personally, I find it hard to identify — I’ll take weird Barbie any day. But then again, for some folks, Allan is the real hero.
WAIT, SO WHOSE SYMBOL IS THIS ANYWAY!? The politics of all of this are pretty confusing—with those who might normally be seen as identifying with the doll denouncing the film, and feminists and queer activists stepping up to praise it.
But, Cleo Levin reminds us in Slate, “Of course, both sides have it wrong. Barbie—the doll, not the movie—is neither a feminist icon nor a symbol of motherhood and family values. She is a very popular toy made by a corporation. … Her story can be told in any direction, by Gerwig, by journalists, by conservative blowhards, and, of course, by the generations of children who have played with her. So, which side of the political spectrum does she fall on? Both and neither. Barbie is the ultimate bipartisan.”
Questions to ponder:
Have you plugged into Barbie-mania in your own work or personal social media stream? Tell us how in the comments!
How can social justice movements around gender ride the wave triggered by the film’s feminist and LGBTQ+ messages?
Would this film have hit in the same way a few years ago before conservatives pushed gender identity to the forefront of the culture wars?